State of the Outrage
Because Barbara Bush taught him to "use your words, George," her son the president, rather than actually mooning some Senate Democrats at the joint session of Congress on Monday night as he would like to do, will instead call them terrorist-lovers for refusing to give retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms in the FISA bill, and he will call them partisan obstructionists for wanting to extend unemployment benefits in the economic stimulus bill now pending.
Because the political media's machismo depends on admiring cynicism as realpolitik, when the Clintons claim victory in the Florida primary this Tuesday, the mandarins will pronounce it a brilliant chess move, rather than revealing it as a desperation-borne contempt for the rules of the nomination game they had previously agreed to, and as condescension toward those who still naively care about playing by them.
Because there is no accountability in punditry -- outside, that is, of Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann -- Rudy Giuliani's flameout in Florida, like Fred Thompson's before him in South Carolina, will occasion no reminders and no regrets for the jock-sniffing musk-addled crushes once harbored toward them by the Chris Matthewses and Bill Kristols of the political locker room.
Because there is nothing like necrophilia and hagiography to prolong our national addiction to historical amnesia, this week's Republican debate at the Reagan Library will prompt no admission that the sub-prime meltdown now dragging Americans into a painful recession, except for the nouveau gazillionaires insulated from it, is the godchild of the Reagan religion of faith-based deregulation, fundamentalist market worship, and a massive government-engineered transfer of wealth from the middle to the top.
Because "the surge is working" -- because, that is, of the indefinitely long presence of more than 150,000 American troops in Iraq, paid for by trillions of dollars that even the Bush administration no longer has the nerve to put in its budget, combined with the absence of any meaningful progress toward the administration's own benchmarks for political success, coupled with the media's inability to cover the war as anything except the kind of occasional traffic fatality story found on local TV news -- a presidential campaign that might have been a referendum on Republican deceit and incompetence, and a frank conversation about America's real security interests in the world, will instead be a moronic barrage of empty slogans about change.
And because the Framers were unable to anticipate the genius at gaming the Constitution possessed by the power-mad viceroys of a future King George named Cheney and Rove, nor could the Founders conceive of a corporate press hooked on revenue-generating junk and intimidated into abandoning its role as Fourth Estate, the year of onanistic Legacy coverage and good-poodle bipartisanship that will be kicked off this week by the State of the Union address will be left unspoiled by erased emails, unmarred by unenforced contempt citations, unsullied by unacknowledged high crimes and demeanors, and unblemished by disgraces that cannot be rectified by pardons for the past and pay packages for the future.
But hey, it's gonna be a great Super Bowl, Romney sure is good-looking, I wonder what kind of cake Jenna and Henry pick, Joe Lieberman really understands how to reach across the aisle, and did you know Obama's middle name is Saddam?
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
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Has anyone seen "And so Goes the Nation" or No End in Sight"? it's just incredible. Would love to hear how the voters in Ohio feel now after the continuing disaster this a-hole and his cronies are.
I can only hope that the Dem's wake up. It appears that there is some hope for the future...thank GOD for the young people in this country; they are sick of it and don't want to take it (up the ass) anymore. After all, Shrub & Klan have done irreparable harm to the financial future of this nation for years to come.
Pergatory for these guys will be an awful place for these idiots, GOD willing!
It is not ironic, but conspiratorial that the many co-authors/proponents of the PNAC strategy, which has its roots in the Milton Friedman ideology of so-called free-market capitalism, are the very people deeply embedded in the Bush Administration. If there is such a thing as too much government (snark), it is in the form of covert departments and divisions housing these criminal sycophants.
Out of sight, out of mind. That's how it works. It's about time we "citizens" opened our eyes. That is, of course, unless we "citizens" are culpable.
Marty one slight bone to pick-Benjamin Franklin-no stranger to running a press, dazzling the foreigners and dandying the ladies--to a break from working of the Constitiution,Two men approached him and asked"What kind of a government are you giving us?" He paused and said" A Republic-if you can hold it" Human nature being what it is an advantage seeking plutocrat has always been in seek and destroy mode. Sometimes it it kept in better check than others.We live in interesting times.God save the Queen.
Clinton surrogate Nita Lowey already demonstrated "condescension toward those who still naively care about playing by [rules]" when claiming last Monday 1/21/08 on an MSNBC afternoon politics interview (by a well-coiffed but predictably silent female transcriptionist named "Chris") that Clinton had "won" the Michigan primary.
It may be one thing for one who eventually gets a majority of delegates to posit 'what the hell, now they've learned a lesson, the states of FLA and MICH may be seated'; it remains another thing entirely to position oneself as a 'winner' of a vote in which most voters, as in Michigan, followed Natl leaders' instructions to 'move along, nothing to [see/vote for] here' and claim that the small numbers of core supporters who came despite the Natl rules should be used as swing voters to gain a nomination.
That betrayal of what should have been a core of honesty reflected by those such as a Representative that I had once admired has moved THIS voter in an upcoming primary to either Edwards or Obama.
I found myself feeling hopeless with thoughts presaging the problems outlined by Frank Rich, until reading Caroline Kennedy's OpEd.
I read it again this a.m. and it reminds me of all that can be, with either Edwards or Obama.
Shrub, and the compost that feeds him (Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) are the real "America Haters". Their disdain for the citizens of the United States of America is clearly apparent in their contemptuous relationship with our elected representatives in the house and senate, not to mention their complete lack of respect for our constitution and the reputation of our once fine country.
And you whiners expect Hillary (it's her destiny) or Barak ( all kneel and genuflect) Obama to change ANY of this? Fools!!!!!! BTW -FIVE more American boys died in Iraq today. Enjoy your morning coffee.
W = WORST president in history!
Will we ever satisfactorily answer this question: How was George Bush ever elected?
Like the Jerzy Kosinski novel "Being There" gone horribly wrong, the idiot in the Whitehouse who was supposed to make us think his simple analogies were profound and prophetic instead turns out not to be a Jesus figure, but an actual, certifiable, unapologetic idiot.
I know bloggers like Mr. Kaplan dance around the issue, and we all blame vague forces, such as the corporate media and an oligarchy of the rich, but those just don't pin it down or name names. We need to systematically, scientifically scrutinize the process that raised this man to the presidency and we need to systematically, scientifically dismantle it without another seconds delay. We need to write it all down in unassailable, clear language, like lab notes written during the dissection of a rat, and we must rip it apart and throw it into an abyss and ensure it never happens again, and we must not stop until we put it all right again.
All the scientific evidence we need will be standing there in front of our so-called government and the entire rest of the world reading a scripted speech and not a single "credible" inhabitant of the Fourth Estate will ask the question of the modern age: How did this idiot ever become President of the United State?
If ever we needed a democratic equivalent to King Arthur or Gandalf, imbued with magic and courage, this is the time. That person is certainly not John McCain or his best political friend, Hillary Cllinton, or statuesque and stone Romney, or yuck-yuck Mike Huckabee.
It "may" be Obama. If it isn't, if he's just another player in the game that succeeds Bush with another cipher of the real powers, we are all just plain doomed, damned to repeat what began perhaps under Reagan, continued with GHW Bush and Clinton, and was perfected under Cheney. We will have not only lost a generation, but entered another dark age.
Don't we all sense the fingers on the light switch?
Good night!
Kaplan's superior intellect highlights just how intellectually poor shrub's administratin is. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any relief in sight.
on CNN a relief worker was trying to explain the desperate situation of the Palestinians who are starving to death under the Israeli blockade.but the MSM bozo would only grunt and respond "Well Sec.Rice is only mildly concerned.I swear to God,all you have to do in this White House is put out a press release saying "Everything's fine.Go back to sleep"and the news media falls for it.Of course most of them are still sucking-up in hopes of getting an invite to the pugly daughter's wedding.sick bastards.
I've been taking a pass on listening to the decider try to talk as often as possible.
He's all boring propaganda and more whining about Congress presented without any speaking skills whatsoever.
Shrub-ya is like that Iraqi Mis-Information Minister who, watching the tanks roll into Baghdad was saying, "We are in full control, there is nothing to fear!" Our President should hang his head in SHAME that when he speaks, people either mute him out or just hear, "Blah, blah, blah..."
I nominate Marty to deliver the State of the Union address instead.
Everyone, all together now - using your best GeeDub accent
"partisan obstructionists"
At least next January there will be one more to add to the unemployment lines... George Bush... D.
Brilliant. As bad as it probably is for your health, I have to say I love it when you are openly bitter about this. What emotion does one express after years of unabated outrage anyway?
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